Cathay Pacific flight from New York to Hong Kong diverted due to geomagnetic storm

Cathay Pacific Airways confirmed a flight from New York to Hong Kong was diverted on Wednesday due to a geomagnetic storm, a space weather event meteorology and IT experts said was capable of disrupting GPS navigation and signals.

But the meteorologist played down concerns about the geomagnetic storm’s impact over Hong Kong, saying the city was in a low latitude region and unlikely to be affected.

Cathay Pacific confirmed on Friday that flight CX831 from New York on Wednesday was diverted and made a “technical stop” at Osaka en route to Hong Kong.

“The captain of the flight made the decision so as to ensure flight safety due to the impact of the geomagnetic storm,” the airline said.

It added that another crew was sent to Osaka to operate the flight as a result of the re-routing.

Flight CX831 landed in Osaka at 6.25pm and the same aircraft departed an hour and 20 minutes later. It arrived in Hong Kong at 10.27pm on Thursday, taking 17 hours and 17 minutes for the journey from New York, which was one hour and 42 minutes longer than expected.